Imagine holding a secret inside you that’s buried so deep no one has any idea it’s there, yet it comes to the surface almost on a daily basis, only to be looked at, remembered, and then buried again.

Imagine finally telling that story, after twenty five years of carrying it by yourself, to only one person. And being terrified that by telling it, you may lose that one person in your life that you can’t live without.

But you know you have no choice, if you’re going to make this relationship work. So you take that chance.

This is Elizabeth’s story, as told to me a few years ago by her husband, the man she finally trusted to tell her story to. And re-told here, of course, with their permission.

Elizabeth was raised in an era in which babies weren’t born to unmarried women. It just wasn’t done. There were many hastily arranged marriages back then, especially in small towns, with parents crying real tears for lots of reasons. Sadly most of those marriages didn’t last.

Or instead of marrying, if they could, many times young girls would travel to visit a “distant relative” for several months for a change of scenery. Usually everyone knew why, but said nothing.

Elizabeth grew up in a medium sized town, where, fortunately, not everyone always knew everyone else. She was not quite 20 years old, a college sophomore living at the time about two hours away from her hometown, when she found herself pregnant. Marrying the baby’s father was not an option.  In fact, she didn’t even tell him. He was already in a relationship with someone else; she certainly didn’t love him, so why would she decide to have him in this child’s life – and hers?

But she also knew she wasn’t ready to have a child. She had her education to finish. She also knew this news would devastate her parents, as much as they loved her. Their embarrassment and disappointment in her would be too much for her to bear.

At that time abortion had just become legal throughout the country. Sure, she briefly considered it, but she also knew she could never ever do that. Kill the life growing inside her? Not even give this baby a chance at life? No. She couldn’t live with herself if she did that. But she also knew she couldn’t raise a child right now, especially on her own.

So she made plans, and told her parents she’d be spending the summer with a girlfriend in another state while doing an internship for school. Although somewhat disappointed they wouldn’t see their daughter over the summer break, they were excited about her opportunity. And they totally supported her.

Little did they know….

Elizabeth had already contacted an attorney who specialized in private adoption. She met with that attorney on several occasions, exploring her options. And she made the difficult decision to have the baby and have it placed in a family of her choice.

“She told me it was the most difficult decision she’d ever made,” her husband told me. “She knew she’d never see the child again, or know anything about him or her, because that’s how adoption was handled then. She knew there’d always be a part of her that was missing, but she also told me she couldn’t have lived with herself if she’d aborted that child. And I greatly respected her courage and the choice she made. And I told her so, as she cried when she finished her story.”

Elizabeth read the stories about each of the families who’d registered with her attorney to be considered as adoptive parents. She looked through pictures of these potential parents for her child, trying to decide who to choose, because in those days, adoptive parents and birth mothers rarely ever met, and she couldn’t handle that anyway.

She finally selected a family who’d been on the adoption list for several years. The woman had her coloring, her height. The man slightly resembled the child’s father, so she figured there’d be less questions as he or she grew up. Both potential parents had college degrees, which was important to her, because they would most likely be able to adequately provide for her baby, and make sure that child received a good education as well.

As a mother, and now a grandmother, I cannot imagine the thoughts going through Elizabeth’s mind as she reviewed potential parents to raise the child she was carrying. She knew she’d see her baby just one time, hold that precious little one just once, and then with a first and last kiss, hand her child over to a nurse who would then take him/her to the parents she’d selected.

What a brave, loving, and totally unselfish act. And I’m sure she wondered if she could really go through with it when it was time. If she’d have the courage to hand her child over and entrust his/her life to strangers.

But she knew she had no choice, and it was the most loving thing she could possibly do.

She also knew her life would be changed forever.

Her attorney helped her make plans to stay at a home for unwed mothers, as they were called those many years ago. When her college classes ended at the beginning of the summer, Elizabeth went to stay for those last several months of her pregnancy with several other young women in her same situation.

“She won’t talk about those months,” said her husband. “I think they were just too hard for her to remember. Here she was, pregnant, surrounded by people she didn’t know, and getting ready to do one of the hardest things she could ever do. But I admire her greatly for her decision.”

Elizabeth did take a couple of college classes while she was waiting to give birth, which probably helped pass the time, as well as take her mind off what was to come.

And then the day came. Nervous, scared, and not knowing what to expect, Elizabeth gave birth to a baby boy. She looked at him, and loved him immediately. She hesitated for a moment, tears in her eyes as she kissed him hello and goodbye, and tearfully handed him over to the waiting nurses.

But she never forgot. And she always wondered.

And yes, there is a “rest of the story.” Read “The Secret Child, Part II,” to be published here on February 2.

It’s something very few of us actually think about. Until it happens to us.

What does the word transplant mean to you? What emotions does it evoke?

Have you ever really thought about it? What it really means? What has to happen in order to have an organ transplant?

It’s probably been 15 years or so since I first came in contact with organ donation. A coworker’s husband had had extremely serious heart problems for years, and his heart had weakened until his only chance at long term survival was receiving a new heart. He had been on a list for a new heart for quite some time, and was growing weaker by the day. We had all been hoping that a heart would come in time to save his life.

And it did.

But it didn’t.

The heart arrived, but it arrived later than it should have. And at that point the surgeons had no choice but to begin transplant surgery and hope the new heart, which was also starting to fail, would miraculously revive itself enough to save this man’s life. Because his own heart just wouldn’t last any longer.

And three weeks later the donor’s heart, which had tried so hard to continue the life-giving miracle its previous owner and its family had wished for, gave out, and our friend’s husband passed away, never regaining consciousness after the transplant procedure.

There were no words that any of us, especially John’s widow, could say to express our thoughts, our feelings. The miracle of a second chance had failed.

Now fast forward to a few short months ago, when a coworker of my husband’s underwent a lifesaving kidney transplant. In this situation the donor was delighted to be able to give the gift of her kidney to someone who desperately needed it. Because that person who needed it was her father. As she said, she had two working kidneys, and only needed one, so she was happy to give a gift of life to one of the people who’d help give her life. And both donor and recipient are doing fine!

However, when the actual organ donation hits home, when you or a loved one faces an organ donation procedure, your mind goes in so many directions at one time that you don’t know which direction to walk in. Especially if it’s a procedure involving an organ that is only harvested due to the death of someone else.

A little over three years ago my husband was told his left eye, which had experienced countless bouts of infections for over twenty years was getting so bad that he needed a partial cornea transplant in order to save his sight in that eye. “We do them all the time,” said his doctor. “We regularly schedule the transplants once a month.” And the office routinely set him up for the procedure on the next scheduled transplant day of the month.

And suddenly, as Ben and I discussed it that night, the realization of what was actually involved in that procedure hit me like a ton of bricks.

In order for his sight to be saved, someone had to lose their life, because a cornea is not an organ you offer to donate because you have two of them. Yes, I knew that. In fact, Ben and I are both registered as organ donors, and have been for years. It’s something we both strongly believe in.

But to suddenly be in the position of an organ recipient, or should I say the wife of a recipient, I have to say that was a different matter when I actually thought about the entire procedure.

Suddenly I found myself thinking about the whole process in an entirely different way. Especially when we got a call the day before the scheduled procedure canceling it, because no cornea was available, something the doctor’s office told us almost never happened.

In reality, that meant someone hadn’t died in order to donate their eyes. We had to wait again. Until someone died.

As a Christian, how do you pray over that? You certainly don’t want to pray for someone to die. But for the majority of organ transplants, that’s what happens. Someone has to die in order for those organs to be donated, or in our case, to save someone’s sight.

It’s a sobering thought. One you don’t think about until you’re in that place. I can’t even begin to describe it.

Then we got another call a few days later. They were rescheduling the procedure because they had a cornea.

Someone had died.

And I suddenly found myself praying for the person’s family, for consolation and comfort. For them to know their loved one had contributed so greatly to the lives of others, because most likely the donor gave more than the gift of sight to my husband. Most likely the donor gave other organs as well, and I prayed those recipients would be as thankful as we were for the opportunity for a second chance.

And yes, I wondered about the donor. Who he or she had been; how old they were; what caused their death; and if their life had been everything they’d hoped it would be.

We’ll never know.

We’ve read about heart transplant recipients meeting the families of those whose heart they received, and the emotions it evokes, knowing a part of that person still lives inside someone else. That must be a wonderful experience if both families can handle it, but personally I know I couldn’t.

It’s an individual choice. Just as organ donation is an individual choice.

But it is a gift of life; a gift of a second chance. I’ll always wonder who it was who gave my husband the gift of restored sight in that eye. And both of us will always be grateful for that gift, even as we remember at what cost it was given.

Author’s note: If you are already registered as an organ donor, thank you. If not, please consider it. Visit DonateLife America for more information.

It’s what we’re supposed to do.

But sometimes doing the right thing is not the easiest thing to do.

Sometimes it’s the absolute hardest.

Especially when it involves family members that we’re at odds with from long ago clashes, misconstrued statements, and misunderstandings that we don’t even remember how they were started.

And when you try to make things right, you either don’t know where to begin, or you’re scared of your gesture of reconciliation not being accepted, or even acknowledged.

There are times you know you have to reach out, make that first step, even though you have no idea whether your attempt at reconciliation will be accepted or ignored. If it’s accepted, that’s wonderful and you can all begin that slow process of healing.

And if it’s not, then at least you did the right thing, and tried. And you can’t do any more than what you did. Because you can’t change someone’s heart.

Sometimes that person would rather stay mad than accept a gesture of reconciliation, because in their mind, they’re right; they’ve always been right, and whatever someone else did, or they perceive someone else did, things can never be made right by the other person trying to mend fences. Because if the other person gives in and accepts that reconciliation, they perceive themselves as being weak, when in reality they’re being prideful, rather than showing compassion and love.

But at least you did the right thing.

Doing the right thing can also extend to friendships and workplaces. You may have a friend whose spouse is cheating on him/her and you know it for a fact, because you’ve witnessed it on several occasions. Do you hide it, or let them know? And how do you tell them?

You may have another friend, or even a family member, whose child is involved in something dangerous, perhaps drugs or a gang. Again, you know this for a fact. What do you do? Especially knowing the severity of the problem, and if you don’t say or do something that child’s very life could be in danger. And you know if you don’t tell them, and something happens to that child that you could have prevented, you couldn’t live with yourself.

Or you may know a co-worker is stealing from your company. Not just little things like a few office supplies, but actually embezzling money. What’s the right thing to do, and how do you do it?

No, doing the right thing isn’t easy, is it?

But it’s what we’re supposed to do.

Are you facing a situation in which you know you need to do the right thing?

It’s a new year. What are you going to do about it?

1-3 inches. No. A light dusting. No. Up to five inches. No. Maybe two inches. Wait….it’s looking like 8-12 inches. Or….a blizzard, since we just got that warning across our phones!

Who knows? When it comes to predicting snow, there’s really no way to know.

Until it happens.

The last two days have been crazy with weather alerts going off every couple of hours. Predictions changing with every alert. Because no one really knows whether we’re getting snow or not, or if we do, how much will be in store for us. How long the schools will be closed, and we know they will be; even the mere threat of snow closes them around here, or at least closes them early.

As my husband said the other night, “If there were such a thing as reincarnation, I’d come back as a weatherman so I could get paid for being wrong.” Because no matter how well we think we can tell what’s going to happen, we really don’t know…until it happens.

Weather, like our everyday lives, is unpredictable. We have no idea what’s really going to happen until it does. We can plan, and make arrangements for the things that may occur, but in the end we have no idea what’s going to happen until it does.

We could have a light dusting of snow, a few inches, or several inches (like half a foot!) that would drastically impact everything in our area. Or we could get nothing at all.

That’s how life is. We think we know what’s going to happen. So we ignore warning signs. Sometimes it works out, and the warnings were a fluke. Sometimes they’re right on, and if we’d ignored the warnings, we’d be in a bad situation. Or sometimes we do ignore them, with unpleasant consequences.

But we need to be prepared for circumstances that we can’t control. Certainly weather is one of them, but we also need to be prepared for unforeseen circumstances in our lives that can dramatically change our entire future.

That’s not being negative. It’s being wise.

We prepare for an upcoming snowstorm, or hurricane, by making sure we have the groceries we need, batteries in case the power goes, filling our vehicles with gas, being sure our heating systems are working properly, and in some cases making sure generators are fueled and ready. And if it’s snow that’s predicted, we storm the stores for snow shovels and ice melt, and get mad at the store personnel because there’s none left. Well, it’s not their fault, is it, that we waited til the last minute?

So why don’t we prepare for other things in our life that could impact us, and for a much longer period of time than a few days of snow? Why do we sometimes wait til the last minute to try to make preparations and then get upset with others because of our own procrastination?

I have no answers, but it’s something to think about.

It’s already started. All the commitments, all the plans starting to fill up my 2017 calendar.

But then I started to think about what I’d written last year. About busy-ness. Not business. Busy-ness. Being busy all the time, but getting nowhere, accomplishing nothing.

It all started last year with a post from an acquaintance about how busy busy busy they’d been. Doing this, doing that. No wonder we hadn’t seen them in ages. Plans were half made but never confirmed. Either something else always came up, or time just marched in and changed things in its own inimitable way. Plans were juggled here and there, and eventually just fell thru the cracks into an abyss, and nothing was ever done. Sadly that’s still the case. With several acquaintances.

We’re all guilty of that, though.

Many times we think our busy-ness is for all the right reasons. “We had to volunteer at church for this or that.”

“I know we made plans, but this meeting came up, and we felt guilty because even though we’d made other plans, this is really important, and we couldn’t say no. I hope you understand.”

Or, “We arranged to take our parents to dinner, but then someone called and asked us to help them with a project that same night, so we re-scheduled our parents, and I guess we hurt their feelings because they said they guessed they weren’t as important as our friends.”

Or how about, “We ‘forgot’ to discuss plans with our spouse, and he/she had already made plans for that same night. So we’ll pick another night.”

Or we have plans for a big project we want to accomplish. Something we’ve wanted to do for quite a while. We talk about it all the time, but talk doesn’t accomplish what we keep saying we’re going to do. Something else always comes up, and we lose our focus.

And it never happens.

Busy-ness. Or, busy-mess as I just accidentally typed. But it fits!

Remember the song “Cat’s in the Cradle”? That line, “I’d love to if I can find the time.” The dad in the song never did, and because that’s how he was raised, neither did his son. It was always, “but we’ll get together soon. And we’re gonna have a good time then.”

We’re all busy with our lives. My previous job took me away from home 11 hours a day, and I was always exhausted by the time I got home, and when the weekend came around I didn’t want to do anything. It wasn’t fair to me or my family. Now that I have a new job I truly enjoy which is only a short half hour commute each way, I’ve actually been able to catch up on the things I missed out on. Some things fortunately waited patiently for me, but sadly, others didn’t.

Those are the things I miss the most. The ones I cannot recapture. The missed opportunities. We mean well. We say let’s do this or that, but we don’t always follow up. And then one day we realize people we really cared about are out of our lives. And we didn’t even realize it. Or the things we really wanted to do have been on the back burner so long we just give up, because we don’t think we’ll ever have enough time to do them. And another opportunity is missed, because we were just too busy, with things that actually weren’t all that important when we look back on them.

That’s unfortunately how life is these days. We don’t make the time we need for ourselves, or for those closest to us, because we’re torn in so many directions by other things, usually things really not as important as we think they are.

Maybe the busy-ness is a substitute for something missing in our own lives. Maybe we think we’re only liked, only appreciated, only useful if we try to do everything everybody else wants us to do. But most of the time that thinking is at the expense of ourselves…and our friends and family. We can’t be everything for everybody all the time. Because then there’s nothing left for ourselves.

Think about it. What’s important to you? Who’s important to you? Now what are you going to do about it?

Is your busy-ness going to keep you running in several directions at once, or are you going to take the time to slow down and re-think your priorities? Before it’s too late.

Take time to smell the roses, and the gardenias. Walk in the rain with someone you love. Enjoy a quiet dinner with friends and laugh at each others’ jokes until your stomachs hurt. Call someone you haven’t talked to in a while and renew a fading friendship. If you’re lucky enough to still have your parents around, go visit them. Play a game of catch with your children or grandchildren. Be spontaneous instead of filling up your calendar weeks in advance, with no nights free.

Those meetings can wait. Someone else can coordinate that luncheon. The world won’t stop if you say “no” to being on one more committee.

But your world will begin to change. And you’ll wonder why you ever let all that busy-ness take over your life. And suddenly, you’ll have a life again.

It’s a new year. Start it off right!